Dopamine.
It's at the core of our sexual drives and survival needs, and it
motivates us to do just about everything. This mechanism within
the reward center of the primitive brain has been around for
millions of years and has not changed. Rats, humans—indeed,
all mammals—are
very similar in this respect.

Dopamine is
behind a lot of the desire we associate with eating and sexual
intercourse. Similarly, all addictive drugs trigger dopamine (the
"craving neurochemical") to stimulate the pleasure/reward center.
So do gambling, shopping, overeating and other, seemingly
unrelated, activities. Go shopping: dopamine. Smoke a cigarette:
dopamine. Computer games: dopamine. Heroin: dopamine. Orgasm:
dopamine. They all work somewhat differently on the brain, but all
raise your dopamine.

You get a
bigger blast of dopamine eating high-calorie, high-fat foods than
eating low-calorie vegetables. You may believe that you love ice
cream, but you really love your blast of dopamine. You're
genetically programmed to seek out high-calorie foods over others.
Similarly, dopamine drives you to have sex over most other
activities. With dopamine as the driving force, biology has
designed you to engage in fertilization behavior to make more
babies, and urges you to move on to new partners to create greater
genetic variety among your offspring.

Your
primitive brain accomplishes these goals of more progeny and
promiscuity by manipulating your brain chemistry, and thus your
desires and thoughts. High levels of dopamine increase sexual
desire, encouraging you to behave recklessly. The thrill of a new
affair and the rush from using pornography are examples of high
dopamine. Unfortunately, consistently high levels of dopamine lead
to erratic behavior and compulsions that are not conducive to
survival. (See the "EXCESS" column in the chart below.) Most
mammals, therefore, evolved with defined estrus periods when they
"go into heat." The rest of the time they are more or less neutral
about sex.

Humans,
however, don't have a period of "heat" followed by a long period
of indifference to sex. Unlike all other mammals, we have the
potential for on-going, dopamine-driven sexual desire. Yet we,
too, self-regulate. An "off switch" kicks in after too much
passion.

Two events
happen simultaneously. Dopamine plummets and prolactin soars.
Dopamine is "go get it!" and prolactin is "whoa!" This mechanism
shifts your attention elsewhere: to hunting and gathering, taking
care of babies, building shelters, and so forth. Without this
natural, protective shutdown, you would pursue sex to the
exclusion of all other activities. When rats were wired so that
they could push a lever in their cages to stimulate the nerve
cells on which dopamine acts, they just kept hitting the lever
until they dropped—not
even pausing to eat or investigate potential mates. Dopamine is
highly addictive; the rise in prolactin puts the brakes on.

This event
(drop in dopamine and rise in prolactin) is the cause of the
emotional separation that so often follows in the days or weeks
after a passionate encounter.

FEELINGS
& BEHAVIORS ASSOCIATED WITH VARIOUS DOPAMINE LEVELS

EXCESS

DEFICIENT

"NORMAL"

Anxiety

Anhedonia -
No Pleasure, World Looks Colorless

Motivated

Psychosis

Inability To
"Love"

Feelings Of
Well-Being, Satisfaction

Aggression

No Remorse
About Personal Behavior

Pleasure,
Reward In Accomplishing Tasks

Schizophrenia

Depression

Healthy
Libido

Addictions,
Compulsions

Addictions
(seeking relief from depression)

Good
Feelings Toward Others

Paraphilias
(Sexual Fetishes)

Antisocial
behavior

Healthy
bonding

Sexual
Addiction

Low Libido

Maternal/Paternal Love

Unhealthy
Risk-Taking

Erectile
dysfunction

Healthy risk
taking

Gambling

Lack Of
Ambition And Drive

Sound
choices

Impulsive
Sensation-Seeking

ADD?

Realistic
expectations

Compulsive
Activities

Social
anxiety disorder

As you can see
from this chart, a balanced level of dopamine is necessary for good
mental health. When dopamine drops, you feel like something is
dreadfully wrong. Too much dopamine also leads to reckless behavior
and restless anxiety, which can be quite severe. These uncomfortable
feelings are then projected onto your partner. Bingo! Suddenly, he or
she doesn't look so appealing. This is a very uncomfortable cycle to
experience in your intimate relationship. During the "hangover," or
"low-dopamine" portion of the cycle, you may feel abandoned, or as if
someone is demanding things from you in ways that you cannot tolerate.
Or you may desperately seek new highs (alcohol, sweets, new partners,
pornography, and so forth) to raise your dopamine levels again.

Perhaps you can
see how this cycle of highs and lows, or attraction and repulsion, can
make your relationship feel more like a roller-coaster ride than a
romantic fairytale. It is like starting and stopping in heavy traffic.
It shows up in lovers' lives as intense attraction, followed by
behaviors that tend to separate them. (Prolactin can promote
separation, too, as we'll see in a moment.)

The point is that conventional sex
can play havoc with your neurochemistry. Much of the time, your dopamine
levels will be uncomfortably high or uncomfortably low.

This is why the
ancient Taoists and other sages throughout history have recommended
making love without conventional orgasm. By avoiding the extreme highs
that over-stimulate the nerve cells in the primitive brain, you also
avoid the temporary lows that accompany recovery. You keep your dopamine
levels within ideal ranges. This produces a sense of wellbeing, which
promotes harmony in your relationship.

Dopamine is
not the only culprit that contributes to the behaviors and mood
swings that separate intimate partners emotionally. Prolactin, the
neurochemical that shoots up after orgasm, is associated with many
of the very symptoms that long-term couples complain of in their
relationships. (See chart below.)

Prolactin's
effects can linger. For example, cocaine blasts the brain with high
levels of dopamine, and prolactin rises during withdrawal. Indeed,
addicts going through withdrawal required two weeks for their
prolactin levels to drop to normal. After mating, female rats show
surges in prolactin for up to two weeks—even
if they don't get pregnant. Finally, prolactin is associated with
the stress of feeling hopeless. As partners grow distressed and
discouraged by the puzzling highs and lows in their relationships,
their higher prolactin levels can compound their distress. They
forget what it feels like to be in balance, and gradually lose their
natural sense of wellbeing.

Both low
dopamine and high prolactin make your world look bleak—and
increase your craving for better sex or new partners who would raise
your dopamine levels (and set you on another addictive cycle of
highs and lows). Together these neurochemicals probably account for
the "end of the honeymoon," which nearly all couples experience
within a year of marriage.

SYMPTOMS
ASSOCIATED WITH EXCESS PROLACTIN

WOMEN

MEN

Loss of
libido

Loss of
libido

Mood
changes / depression

Mood
changes/depression

Hostility,
anxiety

Impotence

Headache

Headache

Menopausal
symptoms,
even when estrogen is sufficient

Infertility

Signs of
increased testosterone levels

Decreased
testosterone levels

Weight
gain

Weight
gain

Intercourse may become painful because of vaginal dryness

Peripheral
vision problems

Infertility, irregular menstruation

Gynecomastia (growing breasts)

Peripheral
vision problems

There are at
least three source of emotional friction related to these brain
chemistry shifts. (1) Partners get out of sync. Dopamine levels rise
in one while the prolactin levels are still high in the other. You
may desperately want sex, while your partner has no interest at all.
(2) Partners project their state of mind onto each other. When you
feel rotten, or "hungry," or just plain "off," it's normal to find
fault with the person closest to you. It honestly seems like you'd
feel fine if he'd just be more generous, or she would just stop
shopping for more and more shoes and make love. (3) Partners' brains
get rewired over time, away from love and toward defensiveness. The
part of your primitive brain that is designed to react to snakes and
predators is now being activated by your partner. Certainly your
partner didn't threaten to poison you, but sex with your partner
later made you feel bad at a subconscious (neurochemical) level.
Actually, of course, you hurt yourself by letting
biology tell you how to have a good time in the bedroom. Your
subconscious, however, feels that your lover is the culprit.

Virtually no
one identifies this hidden, biological source of distress. Instead,
the part of your brain that analyzes looks for other explanations.
You know, for example, that you don't feel right. Your partner is
acting weird. You're upset, and your honeymoon has ended. Maybe you
write your uneasiness off as a mood swing, or get a prescription for
an antidepressant. Or maybe you feel that your partner is somehow to
blame for the fact that you feel rotten. "If only he would help more
around the house." "If only she would stop badgering me." And so on.
Yet, when you try to fix each other, you're addressing symptoms and
ignoring the deeper problem—these
neurochemical shifts.

To heal the
underlying problem, you may just have to change the way you make
love. g

Marnia
(with degrees from Brown and Yale) is a former corporate lawyer who left
her career to learn how ancient sacred-sex prescriptions can heal the
current widespread disharmony in intimate relationships. With the
collaboration of her husband Gary Wilson, who is a human sciences
instructor, she authored Peace
Between the Sheetsand
they maintain a website and newsletter calledReuniting.